3 Mar 2016

“Mother
India is not a piece of earth; she is a Power, a Godhead, for all nations have
such a Devi supporting their separate existence and keeping it in being. Such
beings are as real and more permanently real than the men they influence, but
they belong to a higher plane, are part of the cosmic consciousness and being
and act here on earth by shaping the human consciousness on which they exercise
their influence. It is natural for man who sees only his own consciousness
individual, national or racial at work and does not see what works upon it and
shapes it, to think that all is created by him and there is nothing cosmic or
greater behind it.”[1]

[Extract – read full article below. Title
provided by Compiler and references updated. From Kishor Gandhi’s “Social Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and The New Age”, pp 33-36 (First Edition in 1965).]

The Nature of Society

(I)

The whole structure of Sri Aurobindo’s social philosophy is built upon his view of the
nature of society, its evolutionary development and its ultimate destiny.
Because of this, the full import of his socio-philosophical thought would not
be grasped without a preliminary appraisal of his distinctive view of the
nature of society, the process of its development and its ultimate goal. All
the ramifications of his ideas pertaining to the various aspects of social life
are only an unfolding of his central concept of society, and the reason why
they firmly retain an organic coherence even in their farthest and most
detailed extensions is that they are always governed by this central concept.
It is therefore necessary to state precisely what his distinctive view of
society is before any exposition of the general body of his socio-philosophical
thought could be properly undertaken.

At the very outset it needs to be pointed out that Sri
Aurobindo’s
social philosophy is an integral part of his general philosophical system and,
as such, it has to be viewed as an application of his general philosophical
principles to the sphere of social life. His view of society or community
emanates from the same philosophical vision which also determines his view of
man, humanity and the universe. For him these are different but interrelated
expressions of the same Reality that originates and governs all its manifesta­tions.
As he states:

“There
is a Reality, a truth of all existence which is greater and more abiding than
all its formations and manifestations; to find that truth and Reality and live
in it, achieve the most perfect manifestation and formation possible of it,
must be the secret of perfection whether of individual or communal being. This
Reality is there within each thing and gives to each of its formations its
power of being and value of being. The universe is a manifestation of the
Reality, and there is a truth of the universal existence, a Power of cosmic
being, an all-self or world-spirit. Humanity is a formation or manifestation of
the Reality in the universe, and there is a truth and self of humanity, a human
spirit, a destiny of human life. The community is a formation of the Reality, a
manifestation of the spirit of man, and there is a truth, a self, a power of
the collective being. The individual is a formation of the Reality, and there
is a truth of the individual, an individual self, soul or spirit that expresses
itself through the indi­vidual mind, life and body and can express itself too
in something that goes beyond mind, life and body, some­thing even that goes
beyond humanity.”[2]

Thus, according to Sri Aurobindo, both the individual
and the community are, like humanity and the whole universe, living powers of
the eternal Reality in its cosmic manifesta­tion; they are the individual self
and the collective self of the one universal Being. As “the individual is not merely the ephemeral physical
creature, a form of mind and body that aggregates and dissolves, but a being, a
living power of the eternal Truth, a self-manifesting spirit”[3], so too the commu­nity “is a being, a living power of the eternal Truth, a
self-manifestation of the cosmic Spirit, and it is there to express and fulfil
in its own way and to the degree of its capacities the special truth and power
and meaning of the cosmic Spirit that is within it.”[4]

This parallel between the
individual and the society in regard to their true self or soul also extends,
in Sri Aurobindo’s
view, to their external nature. For, “The nation or society, like the individual, has a
body, an organic life, a moral and aesthetic temperament, a developing mind and
soul behind all these signs and powers for the sake of which they exist.”[5] It is thus evident that the social being is not
merely a group-soul without an embodied external existence but, like the
individual being, has also an external self of mind, life and body. “A people, a great human collectivity, is in fact an
organic living being with a collective or rather — for the word collective is
too mechanical to be true to the inner reality — a common or communal soul,
mind and body.”[6]

Thus, both in regard to its true self as well as its
outer being, the nature of society is closely parallel to the nature of the
individual man. “The
society or nation is, even in its greater complexity, a larger, a composite
individual, the collective Man.” [7] This is true not only of the nation society but of
all other organised human groups.[8]

(2)

It
needs, however, to be emphasised that Sri Aurobindo does not consider the
group-soul to be merely an impersonal force or power of the cosmic
consciousness; to him it is a living conscious being, a real entity, existing
on the cosmic plane with whom one can enter into a direct contact and relation
by an inward projection of one’s personal con­sciousness into the cosmic
consciousness. In reference to the nation-soul of India, for example, Sri
Aurobindo maintains:

“Mother India is not a piece
of earth; she is a Power, a Godhead, for all nations have such a Devi
supporting their separate existence and keeping it in being. Such beings are as
real and more permanently real than the men they influence, but they belong to
a higher plane, are part of the cosmic consciousness and being and act here on
earth by shaping the human consciousness on which they exercise their
influence. It is natural for man who sees only his own consciousness
individual, national or racial at work and does not see what works upon it and
shapes it, to think that all is created by him and there is nothing cosmic or
greater behind it.”[9]

[4]Ibid. It needs also to be noted that the soul of the community or the
group-soul is, in Sri Aurobindo’s view, a sub-soul of the all-soul of humanity;
it is a special soul-form expressing a special aspect of the human all-soul on
earth. As stated by him, “Generally, every nation or people has or develops spirit in its being, a special soul-form of the
human all-soul and a law of its nature which determines the lines and turns of
its evolution.” The Future Poetry (CWSA, Vol. 26), p. 46.

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